8. Conclusion

Pervaporation is a mature separation process that has been industrialized mainly for the dehydration of organic solvents and the production of pharmaceutical-grade anhydrous ethanol. Inorganic membranes are now a real industrial option. This process has also proved its worth for the extraction of minority organic compounds from aqueous solutions, with a variety of applications including the production of low-alcohol wines or beers, the extraction of high-value compounds (flavors) or the recovery of alcohols produced by biotechnological fermentation processes.

The separation of exclusively organic compounds by pervaporation is more difficult than the separation of hydroorganic mixtures, and requires highly specific organoselective membranes. However, it has been successfully applied on an industrial scale to several mixtures of compounds with very different physico-chemical...